Ed Miliband to visit town

The Labour Party leader Ed Miliband is holding a Question and Answer session with members of the public, businesses and charities from across Hastings today (Friday).

Mr Miliband will be joined by the town’s Labour parliamentary candidate Sarah Owen at the event in the town centre, which will give people a chance to ask about the issues they care about.

This will be the Labour Leader’s first public Question and Answer session since he called for the public to have to have their own version of Prime Minister’s Questions.

The Labour Party has pledged to introduce the Peoples’ PMQs which would allow voters to question the Prime Minister as MPs do and that this would take place once a fortnight in Parliament, if permitted by the Speaker.

Ms Owen said: “In Hastings and Rye we have never been shy about putting our views across and that makes the town the perfect venue for this Q&A session.

“People will have the chance to ask questions about the issues that matter most to them and to hear how the Labour Party is committed to making their lives better.”

Mr Miliband told the BBC earlier this month he was preparing a formal proposal calling for voters to be allowed to question the Prime Minister in the Palace of Westminster, like MPs do every Wednesday.

Mr Miliband told the Andrew Marr Show he wanted to ‘let the public into our politics’ and promised that the potential audience would not be made up of his supporters.

He said: “I think what we need is a public question time where regularly the prime minister submits himself or herself to questioning from members of the public in the Palace of Westminster on Wednesdays.

“At the moment there are a few inches of glass that separates the public in the gallery from the House of Commons but there is a gulf a mile wide between the kind of politics people want and what Prime Minister’s Questions offers.”

The Labour Leader visited the town in 2013 following the party’s win in Hastings at the East Sussex County Council elections. Seven of the eight wards were won by Labour councillors and Mr Miliband told Hastings ‘the battle starts here’.